Perceptions of Social Mobility, Gender, and Progressive Politics

Extensive research explores the relationship between deepening conflict over socio-cultural issues and stagnating social mobility, typically focusing on men. Upwardly mobile women are routinely mentioned as belonging to the progressive “winners” of the knowledge-based society, yet their experiences and politics have received far less attention. This paper theorizes and investigates how women view their individual and collective trajectories and how these views relate to perceptions of future opportunities and political attitudes. Using survey data from four West European countries, we find that, while experiencing upward intergenerational mobility at the individual level is associated with positive opportunity perceptions, this relationship is not more pronounced among women than men nor linked to especially progressive attitudes. Rather, it is women sharing a sense of upward collective momentum who demand further action to achieve gender equality. This contrasts with men—including those perceiving themselves as upwardly mobile—who also acknowledge women’s collective gains: they more readily accept the still male-dominated status quo.